Lawmakers with the IBLC say mental and physical health will be their focus this session, calling their 2025 agenda, “Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds.”
INDIANAPOLIS — Lawmakers are still releasing details about what they hope to get accomplished in this year’s legislative session.
Members of Indiana’s Black Legislative Caucus outlined some of their priorities Tuesday morning.
Lawmakers with the IBLC say mental and physical health will be their focus this session, calling their 2025 agenda, “Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds.”
The agenda focuses on several issues, including food security, safe and affordable housing and bringing more doctors to Indiana.
Here are just a few of the dozens of proposed bills from IBLC members in both the House and Senate:
House Bill 1138 would require Indiana’s employee health plan to cover anti-obesity drugs, proposed by State Rep. Robin Shackleford (D-District 98).
“As we are looking at the fiscals of some of these bills and talking about healthcare, we need to look at the preventative side and how much it’s going to save,” Shackleford said.
Another proposal, House Bill 1242, authored by State Rep. Vanessa Summers (D-District 99), would protect people with medical debt from having liens put on their homes to collect on that debt.
There’s also a proposed bill, House Bill 1068, that would help pay off the student loans of doctors who agree to come to Indiana and practice here for 10 years.
In the Senate, there are several bills under what the IBLC calls its “Momnibus Maternal Health Package,” in in honor of the late State Sen. Jean Breaux, who passed away last year. In her work, Breaux championed legislation to address Indiana’s maternal and infant mortality rates.
The bills in the “Momnibus” package would require Medicaid reimbursement for doula services when someone gives birth. There’s also a bill to expand mental health care for postpartum mothers, along with the creation of a behavioral health helpline.
Housing is another big part of the IBLC’s agenda.
“Housing is a social determiner of health. It all blends together,” said State Rep. Greg Porter (D-District 96). “It’s like a six-lane highway. Everybody’s going that direction. The more lanes we have to address these concerns, the better outcomes we will have through our investments of these said dollars.”
Lawmakers say to be healthy you need a safe and affordable place to live and believe addressing property taxes is part of that so people aren’t losing their homes because they can’t afford growing property tax bills.
“One of the things that’s a shame, we should be embarrassed about, is anyone who’s lived in their house 40 years, whatever long time, paid it off and then loses it because of property taxes, not anything they did wrong, but those property taxes shot up, they’re on a fixed income and they have to give up their home, so we need to make sure people are protected,” said State Rep. Earl Harris (D-District 2), IBLC caucus chairman. “If you’re not housed, your health care is not going to be good.”
“Whatever happens with property taxes, we can’t jeopardize needed services,” added State Rep. Cherrish Pryor (D-District 94), acknowledging that people are struggling to pay their property taxes and handling it is a delicate situation for lawmakers.
Lawmakers in the IBLC acknowledge that revenue is down this year going into a session where a new budget will be crafted, but said they believe investment on the front end of some of these issues, will means less money spent later by the state in health care costs.
“We’re not naïve; we know we won’t fix all of Indiana’s health problems in one legislative session,” said Harris. “But this year, we’re committed to doing everything we can to help Hoosiers get access to preventative care, lower health care costs, bring more doctors to the state and to improve mental and physical health outcomes for citizens across the board.”
When it comes to working with newly sworn-in Governor Mike Braun, a handful of IBLC members know the new governor from his time as a state representative a decade ago and say they hope to meet with him soon about their agenda.